An online merchant may provide a number of items for sale to customers over the Internet. These items may include goods, services, digital media, downloadable music, streaming movies, and the like. Customers may access information regarding the available items through a website or other information service provided by the online merchant. The information regarding the items may include that information needed by the customer to identify and purchase a particular item, such as the name and description of the item, the price and availability of the item, and the like. In order to enhance the online shopping experience and allow the customer to fully research a particular item, the online merchant may provide additional item information along with the purchase information. The additional item information may include details or technical specifications for the item, a list of features, and customer reviews of the item.
The customer reviews may allow a potential purchaser to evaluate what other customers think about the item. The customer reviews may include a quantitative rating of the item as well as free-form comments provided by the customers regarding their impression of the item and its features, their experience with the item, their overall satisfaction with the item, and the like. For many popular items available from the online merchant, there may exist hundreds or thousands of customer reviews, covering many varied aspects of the item. However, this large number of reviews may present too much information for some customers to digest, even if provided with tools to sort the reviews by rating, helpfulness, and other qualifiers of the reviews. Accordingly, the vast amount of helpful information contained in the customer reviews for an item may go untapped by potential purchasers.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.